Bright Ideas Of Past Can Tarnish With Age

March 6, 1987|JOAN BROOKWELL, Home & Garden Editor

Just the other day I came across this magazine article titled ``Three Bright Ideas From Three Sunny Florida Homes.`` One of the three bright ideas was a brand new architectural feature -- are you ready for this -- The Carport!

OK. The magazine was the April 1941, issue of The American Home, which a colleague had tossed on my desk. The article referred to this exciting new structure as a car shelter or porte-cochere, but I know a carport when I see one.

``The open shelter ... has the appearance of a pleasant extension of the loggia and is a smart variation of the usual street-front garage. Suitable for warm climates, it`s being included in a number of new Florida homes,`` the article read.

I guess a lot of people agreed it was a bright idea because it sure has been copied often enough.

What made this even more interesting was the fact that the home being featured was in Fort Lauderdale, belonged to a Mr. and Mrs. Howard Hooks and had been designed by architect Robert M. Little. There even was a black-and- white photo of the house with a large arrow pointing to the carport and the words, ``Note car shelter,`` just in case you might miss it.

LONG-AGO PALM TREES

According to the picture, this architectural breakthrough was part of a large, attractive house with coconut palms, undoubtedly long gone. I mean the palms are gone, dead of lethal yellowing; the house probably is still there. Its current owners may even be asking each other, ``When are we going to do something about that old carport?``

I got to wondering when we started calling them carports. At home I have a copy of Webster`s New International Dictionary, Second Edition, dated 1947, which is an extremely large volume. But it does not list carport, which ought to come right between carpophyte and carpos, both of which have something to do with seaweed or crustaceans, I think, and are words I`ve managed to get along without even before 1947. Admittedly, the book is a tad outdated. For example, it defines a carrack as a kind of fish when we all know it`s something you use to carry your surfboard to the beach.

Nevertheless, there is some reason for hanging on to a 1947 dictionary. It has been helpful for a good many years, especially when I glue something and need to put a heavy weight on top of it overnight.

HOME AND GARDEN BARGAINS

Anyway, carports are still around but you can`t say the same for some of the other items in that 1941 magazine. Two-year-old field-grown roses for 10 cents each. Twenty cactus plants for $1. A hand-pushed fertilizer spreader for 95 cents, which, in the illustration, looks almost as sturdy as the $19.97 job K mart was selling last week.

On the other hand, there was the ad for the DeLuxe Mop Wringer Pail. This was clearly a great boon to the housewife because she could step on a lever and it would wring the water out of the mop so she didn`t have to wring it out by hand. It cost $1.60, postpaid. I guess it was considered a luxury item and therefore sold for a higher price than the fertilizer spreader.

The magazine also had a feature on a barn that had been extensively remodeled into a two-car garage: Contractors had bid up to an exorbitant $200 for the job but the cheapskate owners found someone who did it for $62 and the leftover scrap lumber.

And there was the reader who wrote that, thanks to the magazine`s clever budget planning, she found $5 to $6 per week an adequate food allowance for herself and her husband. I read all the recipes and food hints but for the life of me couldn`t figure how I could feed even myself for six bucks a week with such clever budget recipes as the one that started off with a 5-pound leg of veal.